Day 5
But first I'll post that youtube video from P&G I mentioned in a previous post...(see panel on right...)
Mash-Up
OK, so what the hell are Mash-Ups all about?... If you believe that the combined is greater than the parts, as I do, then we have a bit of a framework from which to understand this concept. Furthermore, if you check out the sites like: zillow.com, zoominfo.com and virtualglobetrotting.com you can see how information is collected from the web in order to come up with such things as a virtual resume, property values and map/satellite views of people's homes - the datamining possiblities are endless! You can even see areas of crime in a city based on data collected from news and other sites (eg. chicagocrime.org) This could eventually disintermediate realtors and the value they add to finding a home...something they probably aren't fully aware of yet.
Second Life
Interesting and worrisome all at the same time. I have friends that are actually addicted to SL and have basically detached themselves from real life - they might even end up in a mental institution....Notwithstanding the negative implications of spending an inordinate amount of time in a virtual world, SL does have some benefits - and at some level could simply be viewed as a graphical representation of a chat room. So, this has the potential of training/educating employees and students in an online virtual world. Product development meetings and even recruitment of IT professionals is even possible with SL. There are even marketing opportunities for businesses and their exists the possibility to make real money (through the conversion of Linden $ with real $ via paypal) - although this is not recommended. There was mention of the recent Chinese competitor HiPiHi....scary because it's another reason for people avoid real life interactions and socializing in person....where does this end - the movie "The Terminator" comes to mind. But it exists, it is real and we need to be aware of the potential of this medium - at the very least be mindful of the simulation/modelling and training opportunities...
BPR
Business Process Re-engineering - I wish we could have spent more time on this very important topic. The Sports Illustrated/Superbowl/ - Standard to Digital Photography example (decomposing the process of taking photos) was a great way to introduce the concept, unfortunately the session felt too rushed. Process innovations like "order to listen" (ipod) and "order to cash" were discussed and for me the key take away was: "is value added/created or killed in each process" - clearly if the latter is true, then we need to figure out a way to improve or streamline the process (or even remove it altogether if not required). In the end it is really information and communication technology that can help us achieve and create the process improvement...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Day 3
Alright, I never did get used to taking notes online, so I now find myself trying to catch up on previous days....
Wabi Sabi - "The beauty of imperfection"...
In session 6, despite being at the end of a very long day, I do remember that we discussed the notions of joint development/innovation. I think the development of Linux provides us with the best example and use of joint development and also shows the great potential of people working together in order to innovate. The group exercise was definitely a bit of a novelty as we worked together on google docs not speaking with eachother and still managed to come up with something to present. Our group took the position of Youtube, and together we raised some interesting issues in discussing some of the pros and cons of marketing and product development using Youtube. Sebastian's P&G example (the 'Talking Stain') was particularly relevant and gave us a bit more of a framework to work with. I'll try and link in one of the videos in a bit.
Finally, I think what stood out the most for me from this session was the fact that there has been a shift of money in IT from hardware development to consulting, training, and certification. I don't think this will change in the near-term, and as such I'll keep this in mind when considering future business/investment opportunities.
Day 4
For these sessions, I remember being a little fresher and thus was able to retain a little bit more....
Here we discussed disruptive innovation and this began with a look at the machine tool industry in the early 80s - specifically, how Japan was able to use Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machine tools to increase their market share and essentially take over the market for the next few years by combining the flexibility of computers and machine tools.
Incumbents are often considerably resistant to change and here Dave brought up the example of the current shifts in TV and the way people want to interact with the products. He discusses it in detail on his blog here on the disruptive technologies post: http://omniumtechinnovation.blogspot.com/
We also discussed the Wii and how Nintendo forced the Xbox 360 and the PS3 to sell below cost. They were able to leverage low complexity in order to capture a new market of previously non-gaming type people. I was reminded of this great youtube video, which is not completely unrelated to this and joint innovation you can check it out on the sidebar...
MESH Technology etc.
I was amazed with how Skype leverages more nodes to ehance the quality of their voip technology - allowing mini hubs to form which can expand MESH technology in order to increase resilience against peak nodes...
I was also impressed with some of the trending software and tools we looked at - like google trends - basically monitoring the interests of individuals in various market trends...with the potential aim of determining market preference (Finding demand example: 3G Iphone searches over a year before the product was out on the market.)
I think if you have marketing people that can keep abreast of the rapidly changing market conditions by keeping 'an ear to the customer' these tools (OReilly Radar, Alexa, and Technorati) may be extremely useful - particularly by recognizing the warnings of capability oversupply and in identifying low end customer demand segments.
Now I can begin to understand why it would be difficult to manage both mainstream and disruptive technolgies within a single organization - the complexities would be astounding and counter to existing culture - and might only be possible with a radical shift in strategy (also maybe why reuters and bloomberg might see their demise as they will soon be disrupted by the likes of technorati etc...)
Alright, I never did get used to taking notes online, so I now find myself trying to catch up on previous days....
Wabi Sabi - "The beauty of imperfection"...
In session 6, despite being at the end of a very long day, I do remember that we discussed the notions of joint development/innovation. I think the development of Linux provides us with the best example and use of joint development and also shows the great potential of people working together in order to innovate. The group exercise was definitely a bit of a novelty as we worked together on google docs not speaking with eachother and still managed to come up with something to present. Our group took the position of Youtube, and together we raised some interesting issues in discussing some of the pros and cons of marketing and product development using Youtube. Sebastian's P&G example (the 'Talking Stain') was particularly relevant and gave us a bit more of a framework to work with. I'll try and link in one of the videos in a bit.
Finally, I think what stood out the most for me from this session was the fact that there has been a shift of money in IT from hardware development to consulting, training, and certification. I don't think this will change in the near-term, and as such I'll keep this in mind when considering future business/investment opportunities.
Day 4
For these sessions, I remember being a little fresher and thus was able to retain a little bit more....
Here we discussed disruptive innovation and this began with a look at the machine tool industry in the early 80s - specifically, how Japan was able to use Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machine tools to increase their market share and essentially take over the market for the next few years by combining the flexibility of computers and machine tools.
Incumbents are often considerably resistant to change and here Dave brought up the example of the current shifts in TV and the way people want to interact with the products. He discusses it in detail on his blog here on the disruptive technologies post: http://omniumtechinnovation.blogspot.com/
We also discussed the Wii and how Nintendo forced the Xbox 360 and the PS3 to sell below cost. They were able to leverage low complexity in order to capture a new market of previously non-gaming type people. I was reminded of this great youtube video, which is not completely unrelated to this and joint innovation you can check it out on the sidebar...
MESH Technology etc.
I was amazed with how Skype leverages more nodes to ehance the quality of their voip technology - allowing mini hubs to form which can expand MESH technology in order to increase resilience against peak nodes...
I was also impressed with some of the trending software and tools we looked at - like google trends - basically monitoring the interests of individuals in various market trends...with the potential aim of determining market preference (Finding demand example: 3G Iphone searches over a year before the product was out on the market.)
I think if you have marketing people that can keep abreast of the rapidly changing market conditions by keeping 'an ear to the customer' these tools (OReilly Radar, Alexa, and Technorati) may be extremely useful - particularly by recognizing the warnings of capability oversupply and in identifying low end customer demand segments.
Now I can begin to understand why it would be difficult to manage both mainstream and disruptive technolgies within a single organization - the complexities would be astounding and counter to existing culture - and might only be possible with a radical shift in strategy (also maybe why reuters and bloomberg might see their demise as they will soon be disrupted by the likes of technorati etc...)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Tech Innovation Days 1 and 2
Ok, so after much delay I'm finally back up and running. Apparently my laptop likes to shut down after overheating due to the fact that the fan no longer works - I need to sort that out asap. Anyway, I will try and reflect on some of the key takeaways from our first two days of this class. Admittedly, I'm not used to taking notes online using a computer - this is something I'll need to work on - so bear with me as i figure all this out.
Anchoring and adjustment - let's anchor this entire blog with an A+ now and just get it out of the way....we can adjust later if necessary.
The notions of viral marketing and using social capital to leverage marketing I found to be particularly interesting given the way I started using facebook....
Also, the use of datamining and analytics, although I'd heard about them before - I never truly understood how valuable they could be for a huge range of applications - directed marketing and advertising in particular.
Web 2.0 was also new to me and as we just touched on the idea of using the web as a delivery mechanism for applications, I think i might look into this a bit further when i've got more time.
The concept of predictive markets was thoroughly interesting, and I see huge potential in this area. Although not entirely new to me - a friend had introduced me to elections predictive markets during the last US election - I'm impressed with how many new areas could be assessed using this tool.
Finally, for day 1 - the introduction of the ASUS eee was not new for me - In fact you can pick up one (or order online) at my favorite computer/technology store in Vancouver for about $299 Cdn. You can check them out at: www.ncix.com
Day 2
The importance of knowledge management....I couldn't help but think back to my time spent in Afghanistan working for a multinational headquarters that had serious IT issues...In fact we now have dedicated knowlege management positions for each rotation and for each unit in that rotation. Without going into too much detail (for obvious reasons).... suffice it to say that we are getting better on how we (for simplicity assume NATO) manage our IT architecture given national differences, different systems and applications and the significant security implications.
I fully agree that the first breakdown is in the knowledge capture part...and there are serious liability and security issues with storage of all of our information these days - risk reduction is hugely important....
I really apprecitated learning how to download youtube videos as well as getting some more info on the history and implications of wikis and twikis. The fact that 50% of all companies will be wiki by 2009 is significant and I appreciated the comment that we don't need perfect information to be highly effective...only highly accurate information.
Finally, the idea of 'search engine optimization' and the use of algorithms that can put websites to the top of lists, while not entirely new to me, I know have a better understanding of how companies can use this to their advantage. If, indeed, 'what people are googling is what they do' then search behaviour is truly a microcausm of real life behaviour....amazing!
More to follow soon!
-S
Anchoring and adjustment - let's anchor this entire blog with an A+ now and just get it out of the way....we can adjust later if necessary.
The notions of viral marketing and using social capital to leverage marketing I found to be particularly interesting given the way I started using facebook....
Also, the use of datamining and analytics, although I'd heard about them before - I never truly understood how valuable they could be for a huge range of applications - directed marketing and advertising in particular.
Web 2.0 was also new to me and as we just touched on the idea of using the web as a delivery mechanism for applications, I think i might look into this a bit further when i've got more time.
The concept of predictive markets was thoroughly interesting, and I see huge potential in this area. Although not entirely new to me - a friend had introduced me to elections predictive markets during the last US election - I'm impressed with how many new areas could be assessed using this tool.
Finally, for day 1 - the introduction of the ASUS eee was not new for me - In fact you can pick up one (or order online) at my favorite computer/technology store in Vancouver for about $299 Cdn. You can check them out at: www.ncix.com
Day 2
The importance of knowledge management....I couldn't help but think back to my time spent in Afghanistan working for a multinational headquarters that had serious IT issues...In fact we now have dedicated knowlege management positions for each rotation and for each unit in that rotation. Without going into too much detail (for obvious reasons).... suffice it to say that we are getting better on how we (for simplicity assume NATO) manage our IT architecture given national differences, different systems and applications and the significant security implications.
I fully agree that the first breakdown is in the knowledge capture part...and there are serious liability and security issues with storage of all of our information these days - risk reduction is hugely important....
I really apprecitated learning how to download youtube videos as well as getting some more info on the history and implications of wikis and twikis. The fact that 50% of all companies will be wiki by 2009 is significant and I appreciated the comment that we don't need perfect information to be highly effective...only highly accurate information.
Finally, the idea of 'search engine optimization' and the use of algorithms that can put websites to the top of lists, while not entirely new to me, I know have a better understanding of how companies can use this to their advantage. If, indeed, 'what people are googling is what they do' then search behaviour is truly a microcausm of real life behaviour....amazing!
More to follow soon!
-S
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